It has long been known to affix an elastomeric member, for example a gasket, to a substrate, where such gasket creates a surround or a frame around the periphery of a substrate in order that such substrate may be inserted into an opening where the gasket may perform a variety of functions such as weather sealing, shock absorption, and more recently, as an external appearance/design feature of, for example, a motor vehicle.
Historically, elastomeric members, particularly gaskets, have been affixed to the periphery of only one major surface of a substrate, creating a so-called single-side glazing.
It has been common practice for some years now, to affix such gaskets, as are described above, to a substrate by processes where the gasket is affixed at the same time as it is formed. In-situ molding processes, such as reaction injection molding (RIM), and injection molding of a thermoset compound, such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC), have been particularly favored.
Such molding processes necessitate the use of precisely machined and expensive molds, having male and female halves, which are inserted into hydraulically or pneumatically operated presses. Typically, a portion of the mold is machined into the desired shape of the gasket, such that when a substrate is placed into the mold, the halves of the mold are closed by the press and a polymeric material or materials is/are injected into the mold cavity forming the desired gasket around a portion of, or the entire periphery of, the substrate.
Prior to injection of the polymeric material, for example a polyurethane or PVC, it is known to apply an adhesion-promoting primer, such as a silane material, to the portion of the substrate to which the gasket is to be affixed. As it is formed in the molding process, the gasket becomes firmly affixed to the primed portion of the substrate.
While such molding processes are useful, due to the increasingly complex gaskets required by vehicle manufacturers, such molding processes have become, likewise, increasingly complex, and due to this complexity, increasingly costly.
Due to the design of such gaskets as have been described above, their being in intimate contact with the opening in a vehicle body, and the fact that when in motion, vehicle bodies “flex”, thus distorting to some degree the openings in such vehicle bodies, there may be some rubbing contact between such gasket and the sheet metal of the vehicle body creating an undesirable sound, sometimes known as “squeak.” Much time and effort has gone into finding ways to eliminate such squeak, but this has proven to be a difficult and expensive problem to diagnose and solve.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a relatively simple, cost-effective method of affixing a gasket to a substrate, while at the same time having the gasket thus affixed perform the multiple functions of providing an aesthetically pleasing weather seal for a single side encapsulation, and minimizing the occurrence of “squeak”.